Skye Ladder - 7th August 2012

Session times: 08:00pm-11:15pm

Million

The backing tracks for this song were done a few months ago, so we just needed to record a good vocal.

Janie did a few warm up takes, but for some reason, the signal kept clipping (distorting).  Looking at the signal onscreen, I couldn't see any reason for it.  The signal wasn't too loud (less than 40%) and the A/D box wasn't showing its clip led.  I changed the mic and cable for different ones with the same result.  After about 20 minutes of panic, I asked if anyone else could hear the noise.  Janie, Paul & I were all listening on headphones but only I could hear the clipping.  It turned out the volume knob on the headphone amp that I was connected to was a bit dodgy, so a bit of twiddling of the knob stopped the crackle.  I'll have to get it fixed.


It took about 45 minutes to get a good take, so I made a rough mix and we moved on to a new song.

It's Time To Go

We were just going to get a demo of this song, so I set up the CS02 on a short stand and aimed it at Paul's acoustic guitar.  Janie used the sE2200 we set up for the previous song, and after we worked out the tempo, we got a quick recording down.

The song sounded like something I heard before but couldn't place.  I kept thinking of Fairport Convention but that wasn't right. Paul sort of knew who I meant but couldn't get the band name.  Eventually he said Eddie Reader which led us to Fairground Attraction.  Phew.

The song sounded vaguely like 'Perfect', which doesn't really fit in with the other songs we've recorded so far, so I suggested we straighten out the swing and make it a bit more rocky.

I powered up my guitar rig and found a rock sound that seemed to fit.  The chords to the song were fairly simple so it didn't take much learning.  We selected a tempo, picked a drum beat and recorded a quick guitar track.  I then put down a simple bass line, played a drum part on the electronic drums, and added a hammond part.  Janie re-sang the vocal and I added a tambourine.  In all, it probably took less than an hour to get a decent sounding demo.

By this time it was getting late, so we packed up.  I did a quick mix to email to Janie & Paul and tidied up the studio a bit after they had left.